Caroline and Donnell had a fairy tale romance so their wedding favors had to step it up to shine like this beautiful couple!! Caroline chose two different designs; both had parchment colored background and a white floral to mimic their invitations. She couldn’t decide between “Mr & Mrs” or “hello LOVE” so why not have both!
Mr & Mrs:
Hello Love (based on stencil by Killer Zebras!):
So here is a secret that is not such a secret: I love hosting parties! Love, love, love having kids/folks to the house and all the ruckus and preparation that comes with it. So when Tori (our eldest) picked a date for her bridal shower, I was jumping for planning joy. Unfortunately, Denver is a bit too far of a commute from Philly so I flew in for an awesome weekend of food tasting, er, I mean, checking out venues for her bridal shower. Kensington Quarters totally had that rustic industrial feel she was looking for and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the upstairs room, their service, the food, and great atmosphere!
It was a definite given that the favors would be cookies. Thought Tori would like a little bling like the ring…
Since I had to ship things across the country, the prep for the shower could not be too complicated. Tori’s colors are blush, gold and white so I made a bunch of full sized tassels using instructions through Oh Happy Day! (The tissue paper pack was a set found at Target). I spaced the tassels on simple twine and ran them along the stair railings and the gift table. Thanks Kendra for getting all this set up!
I dipped various sizes of mason jars in gold paint (jars and paint from Target) and sent them to Pure Design Florist (Pure Design saved my backside because I had quite the time finding a Philly florist that was close enough to the venue to deliver and also open on Memorial day weekend!).
One of the bridesmaids, Jill, is a graphic designer. She worked her magic to create the templates for the games we played. I asked her to 1) use the rustic look of wood and lights at Kensington and 2) put a &%$)! load of information on small sheets! The cards were absolutely perfect! Game playing was apparently informative, seasoned with splash of competitiveness; thanks to future Mom-in-law, Johanna, and sister-in-law, Melina, for providing the gift baskets for the lucky winners!
Another bridesmaid, Joan, brought bunches of balloons, decorated with witty words. I’m a sucker for clever words appropriately placed.
We brought Byron upstairs for the latter part of the shower. The almost.bride.and.groom got mini white boards (thank you once again Target) to play our version of “the newlywed game”! POSITIVELY HYSTERICAL! SO MUCH FUN! (Google ‘newlywed game questions’ or ‘newlywed game questions bridal shower’ and you will get more ideas than you would ever need). I typed out many questions and the bridesmaids took turns picking a question to ask.
Tori likes clean lined, structured designs with just a kiss of bling. So we got this cake from the wonderful Whipped Bakeshop in Fishtown. Not only was the cake delicious and beautiful, Whipped Bakeshop was super wonderful to work with. The topper came from Communicakeit. I fell in love with it as soon I saw it on Instagram; it had just the right words and shine for the occasion!
Our (not such a) baby girl!
Tori and her sister/maid of honor (so lucky to have these two daughters)!
Thank you to all of the bridemaids and Johanna for such a successful bridal shower! Your help and collaboration made things run smooth as silk! …. sorry Melina isn’t in this picture 😦
The City of Brotherly Love’s (Philadelphia’s) perhaps best-known landmark is LOVE itself — the Robert Indiana sculpture is in John F. Kennedy Plaza, not far from City Hall. As an odd side bar, LOVE was installed in 1976 but briefly snatched away in 1978; popular demand brought it back to where it stands today.
Since the wedding was in Philly (even though ordered and picked up in Buffalo), all was right in the karma world.
The country club/golf fund raiser theme was “diamond in the rough.” The client’s only instructions were ‘we want a diamond…’ I asked ‘diamond?’ …not “rough” like a fairway rough or a diamond sitting in a fairway rough? ‘Nope, a diamond. And put it in a bag with a ribbon…100 bags.’ Okay. What could I do with quick efficiency and (because I am who I am) in a design that I had not seen before? Here are the resulting cookies:
(PS: These cookies would also be great for an engagement party or bridal shower!)
I started with a simple superman “s” shaped cookie cutter and flooded them with white royal icing. That dried overnight before I added the blue.ish accents (which only had to dry a short time…like an hour or so) before I free-hand/penned in the diamond outline. I used an Americolor black pen. Here’s a quick pic of the general steps I took to get it done.
Diamonds were my new best friend.
Perfect size for the setting, eh?
The bridal shower invitation showcased a mixer with a electric green background, the theme being all things kitchen. So I “whipped up” 10 dozen KitchenAid mixers for the favors. Each cookie was about 3.5 x 3.5″ and she wanted the traditional shortbread flavor.
I used luster dust and almond extract (though vodka or and clear extract will do- flavors barely are noticeable if at all) to paint the mixing bowl and strip and used an edible ink marker to outline the cookie.
This is what 120 cookies look like.
Bagged and tagged. And Patty wanted 10 on a plate too. Assuming that was for her own enjoyment 🙂
Amanda and Ryan are tying the knot! Requested were engagement rings and hearts with the wedding colors of red and silver to be incorporated. There were 4 dozen cookies in their baker’s box of cookies (like to get a feel for how many are in an order and what that looks like) along with the “A loves R” favors (the 3 cookies fit into a long pretzel bag, then tied with ribbon). Sweet!
